Strange Fish — Issue 10

Nicole Piatkoski was born in 1981 and currently resides in Detroit, where she has been drawing from a young age. A graduate from the Illustration program and the College For Creative Studies, she worked as a freelance advertiser part-time for the better part of a decade, but now devotes herself full-time to illustration. Previously also working as a teacher for several years, Ms. Piatkoski writes her own material to create from, mostly out of the desire to not argue with anyone about “what she is getting at.” She knows very well what she is “getting at,” and prefers not to take herself too seriously. Her work is based primarily on the idea that society is profoundly “broken,” but entertaining at the same time. Ms. Piatkoski’s influences include Alphonse Mucha, Woody Allen, Wes Anderson, Kosuke Fujishima, and Haruki Murakami. Her hobbies include playing music far too loudly, volunteering to docent trips to art museums, cemetery photography, watching far too many cartoons, and skulking around libraries to research a book on Victorian-era Detroit murders (that may or may not ever be finished). Follow her on Twitter @NPiatkoski.